Lucrene Languages
Language is described as being the Lucrene capacity for aquiring and using complex systems of communication, and a Lucrene Language would any specific example of such a thing. There are a lot of languages spoken by Lucrenes, but we don't really know how many. Some estimates are put as low as 10,000 and as high as 2,000,000. We're thinking it's more like 500,000 to 750,000, though. Still, that's a lot. Origin Nobody really knows when the many languages of the Lucrene popped up; all we know is that one day, we were silent, and the next, we were grunting and thinking up ridiculous words like "cat" and "Fahrvergnuegen". But most linguists agree that the most primeval languages probably appeared a little while after Lucrenes started figuring out that other Lucrenes existed. Many Lucrene languages are actually just mixes of a bunch of different languages as the foreign settlers kicked down the doors and were like, "Hey indigenous people, here's my language, learn it and mix it into your language or I'll shoot you. kthxbaii:) ." Historians universally agree that this is definitely what happened. Any historian wishing to disprove this theory mysteriously disappeared the day after making their statement. Language Families There are five major language families on Delta 7, or groups of languages that have common ancestry. There are hundreds upons hundreds of language families in Delta 7, but linguists generally agree that only like five of them are important. A lot of Lucrene languages overlap families and could be classified in a number of different groups, but linguists tend to just stick them in which ever group they think suits that language best. There are also a bunch of languages on Delta 7 that really can't be classified into any language family, because they don't share many or any similarities to any language. A good example of this would be the human language Basque that nobody knows about. We call these languages "language isolates." A Lucrene example of a language isolate would be Ishtar, which is indigenous to the island of Ishtar off the coast of the Wastes. And since the Wastes have been extremely radioactive and infested with cannibalistic half-human hybrid monster things for the last hundred years, Ishtar hasn't had much interaction with mainland Selektra for a long time. Thus, Ishtar has been able to develop independently. Elsora Elsora, or Elsoric, is one of the five major language families on Delta 7, situated around the Western region of Lonne Hipreshka, a couple islands, and the Indika Sea. It compromises for about 30% of the world's languages and dialects, including Pashka and Lasiikii. Although it contains two or three important langua ges, Elsora really doesn't have a lot of significance, besides harboring approximately one third of the world's languages. But who cares about that? Linguists estimate that around half of these Elsoric languages will disappear in the next one or two hundred years, due to the spread of Roria and Pashka and parents not passing down these languages to their children. Shame on you, minority language speakers who don't pass down languages to your children! Maeke The Maeke language group is the second-largest of the five major language families on Delta 7, and is located on and around Hana. The most noteable of the Maeke language group is Roria, the second-most spoken language in the world, international lingua franca, and official language of Selektra and surrounding island territories. Geographical Distribution Dialects and Varieties Religion and Language Religion has had a very signifcant impact on Lucrene culture, especially for Lonne Hipreshkans, so it would only be natural for it to have a significant impact in Lucrene writing and literature. Writing Systems Lucrenes have been writing for a long, long, long, long, long, long, ''long ''time. Unlike humans, writing has appeared in almost every semi-with-it tribe, city, or country on Delta 7, no matter how primitive or lacking they are! This has come from the fact that Lucrenes love drawing and that Lucrenes simply love writing things down. Geneticists think this is probably some common strand in Lucrene DNA that makes them just love scribbling everywhere, which is why Lucrene parents have such a hard time with kids drawing all over the walls in crayon or mind ink. This common gene is probably somewhere hidden in the 96% of Lucrene DNA that they just simply do not understand, and is part of what makes a Lucrene a Lucrene. But enough about that; back to Lucrene writing systems! Primitive Writing Systems As I've previously stated, Lucrenes have been writing for a fairly long time. The earliest pieces of writing ever found was a pictographic script inscribed on the roof of a cave near the Draconian town of Halea'ja. Archaeologists have found multiple cave paintings which linguists have confirmed as pictographs, telling the story of something involving a rather gargantun rabbit.